Overturning EPA’s Endangerment Finding Is a Constitutional Imperative
This week, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on a “resolution of disapproval,” sponsored by Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from “enacting” controversial global warming policies through the regulatory back door.
The importance of this vote is difficult to exaggerate. Nothing less than the integrity of our constitutional system of separated powers and democratic accountability hangs in the balance.
Who Shall Make Climate Policy?
The Murkowski resolution would overturn the EPA’s “endangerment finding,” a December 2009 rulemaking in which the agency concluded that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. The endangerment finding is both trigger and precedent for sweeping policy changes that Congress never approved. America could end up with a regulatory regime more costly and intrusive than any climate bill or treaty the Senate has declined to pass or ratify, yet without people’s representatives ever voting on it.
Unless stopped, the EPA will be in a position to determine the stringency of fuel economy standards for the auto industry, set climate policy for the nation, and even amend the Clean Air Act — powers never delegated to the agency by Congress.
The Murkowski resolution puts a simple question squarely before the Senate: Who shall make climate policy — lawmakers who must answer to the people at the ballot box or politically unaccountable bureaucrats, trial lawyers, and activist judges appointed for life?
It might seem amazing that any senator would oppose such a measure. After all, senators take an oath to “support and defend” the Constitution, which vests “all legislative powers” in Congress (i.e., not in administrative agencies or courts). However, regulatory zealotry has a long history of trampling on constitutional principle, and many lawmakers would simply prefer to let the non-elected bureaucrats at the EPA take the heat for “enacting” costly climate policies.
Power Grab
Let’s examine in somewhat more detail the unauthorized powers the EPA will amass unless the endangerment finding is overturned.
For starters, the endangerment finding compels the EPA to establish greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for new motor vehicles. About 95% of vehicular GHGs are carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from gasoline combustion. Because no commercial technologies exist to filter CO2 emissions from automobile tailpipes, automakers can significantly reduce the quantity of CO2 emitted per mile only by reducing the quantity of gasoline combusted per mile.
Thus, by setting GHG emission standards, the EPA can largely determine the stringency of new-car fuel economy standards. Congress should object, because the Clean Air Act gives EPA no authority to regulate fuel economy. Congress delegated that power to another agency (the Department of Transportation) under another statute (the Energy Policy and Conservation Act).
Once the EPA’s motor vehicle GHG standards take effect, CO2 by definition becomes a “regulated air pollutant.” That, in turn, makes any “major stationary source” of CO2 emissions subject to additional regulation under the Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permitting program and Title V operating permits program. Firms will need to obtain PSD and Title V permits if they plan to build, modify, or operate “major” sources of CO2 emissions.
Similarly, the endangerment finding will empower the EPA to establish GHG “performance standards” for scores of industrial categories of emitters, such as power plants, refineries, and steel mills.
Thus, by issuing an endangerment finding, the EPA will deal itself into a position to control the economy — both mobile and stationary sources — for climate change purposes. Yet the Clean Air Act gives the EPA no such authority. Congress enacted the Clean Air Act in 1970, decades before global warming was even a topic of congressional debate. That is why phrases like “greenhouse gas,” “greenhouse effect,” and “global climate change” appear nowhere in the statute.
The Constitution is alive, and the Republic is dead.
They have never proven danger from CO2.
If methane is dangerous, the largest source is rice paddies. They must be covered and capped.
The EPA does have proof of the death rate and danger from driving small cars.
…in the meantime, figure this one out…
http://www.newyorksywatch.com
A great and informative commentary.
It’s all about power with the progressives.
If there is such a thing a human induced global warming. The only true answer is reduction in the number of humans. A web sit has come up with the answer. It is voluntary human extinction. Imagine, if we could convience the liberal to commit mass suicide to save the planet. This would be the answer to all our problems. The site is http://www.vhemt.org.
in the 1970s they claimed that catalytic converters would convert harmful compounds in car exhausts to “harmless” carbon dioxide and water. now CO2 is a threat to our existence.
the science hasnt changed, but the propaganda has.
Thank you for having taken the time to write this informative summary of Senator Murkowski’s “resolution of disapproval.” to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from “enacting” controversial global warming policies through the regulatory back door. “The current global warming is not alarming, abnormal nor manmade.” This is the current title of a book that I plan to publish this summer. Whatever role manmade C02 might play in the current global warming, it is significantly overshadowed by continuing fluctuating longer term multi-decadal ocean and solar cycles. Periodic significant volcanic eruptions invariably also result in cooler global temperatures. Shorter term climate flucturations appear to be dominated by the occurrances of El Nino and La Nina in the Equitorial Pacific Ocean. Therefore, there is no real scientific basis for claiming that manmade C02 is the driving force behind the current global warming. It obviously has some effect but it is minor compared natural forces like the sun, the oceans and large volcanic erruptions that determine global temperatures and climate trends. Further, it is unlikely that the EPA or any other governmental agency will ever be able regulate solar and ocean cycles or when large volcanic erruptions will occur.
Thank you, Mr. Lewis, and, you, Mr. Roth,
I’ve been fighting this battle, plus the “Second Hand Smoking” scam for years in various places. I wonder how many people know that there was no “Second Hand Smoke Study” to backup the ridiculous Television Ads calling for a Ban of Smoking? The Studies never existed until ‘after’ a Supreme Court Case in the State of Virginia: A CDC Lung Researcher took another group of CDC Researchers to court over their Data, and, won.
When he opened the CD’s that supposedly contained the Data, the only thing he found was a series of Ad Hominem Attack Emails against Smokers, and, a plan to get money from Congress to do a study. However, they felt there was no need to ‘do a study’ because they just ‘knew’ Second Hand Smoke was dangerous. They took the money and hired an Ad Agency, used by PITA, to make advertisements ‘selling’ Second Hand Smoking as a Health Hazard to the American Public…just as they did with Caffeine (also ‘no need to do a study’ on that).
When the winning CDC Employee and three other Research Facilities finished their studies, they came up with some astounding results: Zero health effects from Second Hand Smoke, and, Caffeine was revealed as the only known chemical that will preserve and protect the Blood-Brain Barrier that prevents the early onset of Alzheimers.
The CDC now recommends three cups of Coffee a day to protect the “Blood/Brain Barrier”…and, keeps very quiet about the results of their “Second Hand Smoke” studies (as I recall – CDC, Stanford, MIT, and, Johns Hopkins).
The “Second Hand Smoke” scam was blown open by Jonathan Garthwaite of “Town Hall.com” after the winning CDC Researcher sent him an Email (“…don’t do that”) in response to his call for a Petition to expand “No Smoking Areas” based on the non-existant “Second Hand Smoke” study.
This “Second Hand Smoke” frenzy has now spread worldwide, and, we’ll probably export it to other Planets.
If you really want to understand this”power grab”, go back to what happened in the early 70s with the Nixon administration. When he unconstitutionally divided this country into 10 regions to be controlled by regulations created and administered by different agencies/departments (EPA, Education, Agriculture, Fish and Game, Wildlife etc.) all under his dictate and none of which authorized by the constitution. None of these agencies or their agents are answerable or responsible to the people but solely to the president. You’ll also notice that the new constitutions accepted by several of the states having constitutional conventions around the same time, contain no borders.
Thanks to everyone for commenting on my column. Herewith a few thoughts on what people wrote.
To Mark D (1): The Republic lives on in American hearts and minds. Every time I attend a Tea Party rally, my hopes are renewed for a renewal of constitutional liberty.
To Seven (2): Mega dittos.
To Fidelis (3): Can’t open the link, so can’t figure it out.
To Blotto (4): Yes, progressivism is statism with an ideological smiley face.
To David (5): Yes, the spirit of Malthus lives on in the environmental movement. Even when greens no longer believe we’re running out of food and mineral resources because of ‘over-population,’ they believe we’re running out of climate.
To Stargirl (6): Spot on. For 30 years, EPA’s practice, under Sec. 202 of the Clean Air Act, was to mandate the use of catalytic converters to turn bona fide air pollutants into two greenhouse gases — CO2 and water vapor. Then, in Massachusetts v. EPA (April 2007), the sages of the Supreme Court decided that greenhouse gases are “air pollutants” and pushed EPA to regulate them under Sec. 202. Implication? Calalytic converters cause air pollution! The Massachusetts Court legislated from the bench, setting the stage for EPA’s triple breach of the separation of powers, described above.
To Dennis Roth (7): I look forward to reading your book.
To Gordon DeSpain (8): I read some of the second hand smoke literature in the early 1990s, but have not kept up with this issue.
To Ele (9): Nixon was a big government Republican (think price controls!). You make an argument I am unfamiliar with. My offhand reaction, though, is that if the Department of Agriculture, say, is constitutional, then there’s nothing unconstitutional about the Department organizing itself into regional offices.
Lisa is great and getting better every day. Appointed by her outgoing Father, we were very skeptical at the outset, but she has since time and again proven her true dedication to our great state and we wish only that we had another dozen just like her.
Thanks again to Lisa Murkowski.
Mr. Lewis,
The Federal Districts that Ele is referring to are the 10 Federal ‘States’ designated by the first number of the Zip Code, 0-9. The Zip Code is not a Postal Code, it is an Internal Reveue Code that was shoved down the throat of the Postal System. Using said code is one of the ways you declare yourself a “citizen of the United States”…the 10 miles square of the District of Columbia. As a “Citizen of the United States (in Congress Assembled)” you have only Benefits and Privileges ‘granted’ by Congress through the 14th Amendment.